Mexico says Russian daughter admitted killing mom, sister

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The 19-year-old daughter of a Russian woman has confessed to killing and dismembering her mother and her 12-year-old sister, because she thought they were performing witchcraft against her, Mexican prosecutors in the border state of Baja California said Monday.

An official in the state prosecutors' office, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the older daughter had not yet been detained because police were waiting for a formal arrest warrant.

The alleged culprit has been identified as Anastasia Lechtchenko, but the Russian Embassy in Mexico City could not immediately confirm that name.

The prosecutors' official said that the young woman told investigators she planned the crime and committed it without accomplices, but that the circumstances of the killings were still under investigation.

The dismembered bodies of the 45-year-old mother and her daughter were found last week in plastic bags at their home in Playas de Tijuana, about a half mile (1 kilometer) from the U.S. border The rotting bodies were discovered when police responded to reports of a stench coming from the garage.

In a statement Thursday, prosecutors had said that two people were being questioned and that "the family environment could have been the cause."

On Monday, the prosecutors' official described a rough, rebellious relationship between the mother and her older daughter for at least the last five years. The young woman left home at least three times and had allegedly been involved with people who were using drugs, the official said.

At one point, the parents filed a missing person's report on the daughter, who had gone with friends to the nearby state of Sinaloa, which is known for its drug gangs, but police could not force her to return because she was an adult by that time, the official said.